Early Reading Skills How to Choose the Right Book for Your Child

Books are for enjoyment. Therefore, a good book is one that your child enjoys.
　
Why do we need to read to children frequently and from an early age?
· To provide a special "togetherness" time for the child and the parent.
· To allow children to enter the magical world of imagination.
· To enrich their knowledge of the world and enlarge their vocabulary.
· To teach "book language" which is different from spoken language.
· To give the child print awareness in preparation for later independent reading.

What to look for when choosing books for children
It is important to choose from a wide range of books to allow the child to experience different types of text as each will provide different types of enjoyment for the child whilst providing essential book skills.

BOOKS FOR BABIES
· Hard page/ cloth or plastic paged books that resist chewing. Simple clear pictures of everyday things or animals or other babies.
· Novelty books to attract attention--sparkle books, pop up books, touch and feel, noisy books.
· Black & white books.

BOOKS FOR TODDLERS
· Stories that have a simple storyline that interests the child. The pictures should be fairly large and very clear and each page should have a small amount of text that relates directly to the picture. As the child's concentration increases the amount of text can be gradually increased.
· Rhyming books such as Dr Seuss. The ability to identify rhyming words plays a big part in early reading later on by allowing the child to make links from the known to the unknown. So if the child can read cat, by changing the first letter they can read mat/sat/hat and later on much harder words such as splat. These skills are started by listening to the rhymes in these kinds of books.
· Nursery Rhymes. These also rely on rhyming words and when they become very well known, allow the child to predict what rhyming word comes next. You will eventually be able to stop at the end of the line and the child will fill in the missing word.
· Repetitive Stories. These are ones where the action is basically the same on each page but with a small variation, such as a different animal doing the action or a different person saying the same thing. The repetitive nature allows the child to understand the format and encourages them predict what is coming next. Prediction is a very important skill in reading as every time the child turns a page in a story they have to predict what the text will say by first looking at the picture and then making the story make sense with the letters that are on the page.
· Classic traditional stories such as Little Red Hen, The Three Bears or The Gingerbread Man.
· Counting books.
· Animal stories to widen their knowledge of the world.
· Humorous stories. Young children enjoy a slap-stick type of humour and the more you can overact and ham it up when you read it to them, the more they will enjoy it.
· Books with pictures and no text. As the children's language increases they can begin to make up the story themselves . This allows them to gain skills of making up a story that matches a picture and makes sense. Very often you hear a child who is learning to read and reading things that make no sense at all and not even realising it, so these kinds of books encourage this important skill.
· Homemade books. One photo or picture per page and simple text printed underneath and where possible using the child's name. Use simple sentences such as
This is Jack's bed.
Jack can swim. Or I can jump.
Here is a ball. Or This is my car.
Later on the children can draw their own pictures. The children really relate to these books as they are part of their own world.　
· Telling stories. These can be based on known books or just from everyday activities. They will encourage the child to use their imagination and will also help to increase their attention span.

Things to remember when reading stories
· If you really enjoy the story your child will enjoy it too.
· Try to read at least 3 books a day.
· Allow your child to choose their favourite book.
· Re-read favourite books as the child will start to join in as they become familiar with the story.
· Use lots of expression when reading to engage your child's interest and imagination.
· Use loud and soft voices, growling voice for bears, cackling laugh for witches, drawn out words such as H-E-L-P!
· Dad's make wonderful story tellers too.
Just occasionally at an interesting part of the story, such as when there are words in large print (eg: OH NO!) point to the words as you read them. This will direct the child's attention to the text so that they can begin to take notice of the letters and words.